


Thanks for playing

by Dylanobrienisbatman



Series: Chopped Challenge Fics [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Betrayal, Blood and Violence, Cannibalism, Gen, Hansel and Gretel Elements, Heart-to-Heart, Horror, Minor Luna/Raven Reyes, Past Costia/Lexa (The 100), Plague, Post-Apocalypse, Rescue, Roadtrip, Thriller, viral outbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-18 21:23:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22566757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dylanobrienisbatman/pseuds/Dylanobrienisbatman
Summary: Six years ago, the world ended. A violent, deadly viral plague decimated the world, with no way to stop it. Society had crumbled, and the new world order was one of chaos and fear.Lexa and Luna are sent out on a mission, but everything is not as it seems. Will they succeed, or will the chaos claim them?
Relationships: Lexa & Luna (The 100)
Series: Chopped Challenge Fics [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652851
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10
Collections: Chopped: Choose Your Own Adventure





	Thanks for playing

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for Chopped: Choose Your Own Adventure! I was tasked with choosing four tropes and one theme from the list provided, and writing a fic that included them! My tropes and theme are listed in the notes at the bottom of the fic!

Missions made her nervous. Leaving their safe house, an old university dorm building that had been cleared out way before they holed up inside, made her nervous. She rolled over in her bed, a pair of twins that she had strapped together, her eyes finding the photo of Costia that she kept on her nightstand. Laughing, her eyes bright, sunbeams catching on the tiny ring in her septum and the tiny metal cuffs that lined her long locs. She turned her gaze up towards the ceiling, a tear tracking down the side of her face and into the curve of her ear. It had been almost a year since Costia left on a mission, and never came back.

Lexa sat up, rubbing her hands across her face, staring at the clock that read 4:00am. She got up, dragging her feet into the en suite to shower, letting the burning hot water run over her face and down her chest, dripping onto the shower floor. She stood until her timer beeped, alerting her that her water ration time had ended, so she shut it off. She pulled her hair back into two long braids, and pulled on her thickest jeans and heaviest clothes, heavy socks and tough steel toed boots, thick leather gloves, wrapping her scarf around her mouth and nose and snapping on the scientific goggles that Abby, their resident doctor, had recommended to keep fluids from contracting through their eyes. She was already down the hall and almost to the stairwell when she turned on a dime and walked back into her room, grabbing the photo off her nightstand and tucking it the back pocket of her jeans. Luna was already standing outside, leaning against the side of the truck, her goggles and scarf already on, when she made her way outside.

“Ready?” Lexa asked, staring off at the horizon.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“The truck loaded up?”

“Emori and Murphy put about 10 gas cans in the back, blankets, and a box of MRE’s that should last us at least 10 days, if we need it.”

“Raven gave me the map last night, and I grabbed the white ribbon to mark the way, in case we need help.”

“Is the SAT phone in the bag?”

“Mhmm.”

They stood for a second, side by side, staring off towards the east, watching as the dark sky turned a soft warm blue as the sun began to rise. 

“I hate doing these stupid missions. Going to this food factory feels like a terrible idea. There's no way it’s actually abandoned, right?”

“That's what this mission is about, I guess.”

Lexa nodded, and Luna huffed out a breath.

They stood a second longer, and then Luna made the first move, turning and opening the driver side door of the truck and climbing inside.

Lexa climbed inside, closing the doors and removing their scarves.

Time to go.

—————

The drive was three days, and they would be driving the whole time, so Lexa slept as best she could as the sun rose up over the horizon. They were on a straight road, no turns, for the first four or so hours, so they only stopped once in the middle to tie off a piece of white ribbon on an old livestock fence, and then they drove.

And drove.

And drove.

They had been driving for almost 10 hours, the evening light pouring through the windshield, when the plan changed.

A small town came up over the horizon, and as they drove closer they realized it was overrun.

The town was crawling with a huge hoard of infected.

—

The disease began about 6 years ago, when Lexa was just a teenager. She didn’t remember the day they found the first case, but she remembered the day she had seen her first infected person.

She had been just 17, just 6 weeks or so after the first case was found according to the records that managed to maintain through time. She had been driving to visit her grandmother, and had stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere to fill up her tank and get some snacks. She had heard about the virus, it had been on the news, a new viral outbreak of a hemorrhagic fever, passed through bodily fluids. The virus at the beginning had killed everyone that had contacted it, almost completely, and the world had started falling into fear about a week or so before she had seen him. She had been naive, a young girl who believed she was invincible, young and unafraid of anything.

The man had come out of the bathroom, one of those ones that you had to get to from the back of the building outside, and she had been frozen in fear.

Blood coming from his nose, his ears, coming from his eyes like tear tracks. He was coughing, the blood splattering everywhere, and he was covered in sweat and mucus. She came to her senses quickly, and ran to her car, slamming the door as the man lurched across the parking lot and coughed up blood on a woman coming out the door of the gas station.

She could still hear the woman screaming if she closed her eyes and thought about it. She had slammed on the gas and driven back home as fast as she could.

The virus had an incubation period of about 2 weeks before symptoms began to show, which meant by the time the first case was discovered, it had already been too late. There was no way to know how many people had been infected by the time they discovered what was happening. By the time they discovered this fact, it had already been almost 3 months, and the world was ending before their eyes.

The virus had mutated about a year and half after it was first discovered, and it extended the life of its host after infection by almost a month. The virus would incubate for the same 2 weeks, but now it would take weeks for the victims to die, horribly, painfully.

With every mutation, the length of infection grew, and now infected people could live for almost a year with the virus actively killing them.

The viral outbreak had become something like a zombie apocalypse before their eyes.

She had been found to be immune to the first few mutations of the plague, but as time had gone on, as hospitals fell and the CDC disintegrated, it had been impossible to know which mutation would be the one that would kill them, so caution became the most important thing. Cars and buildings were sealed, the CDC had developed viral detection chemicals that had been mass produced, and somehow easily recreated, so you were swabbed before you were allowed back into your home to be sure you weren’t going to infect anyone else. The world had crumbled, and fear became the new normal.

—

“We’ll never make it through that town.” Luna said, her hands shaking in her lap. It was obvious. If they drove through the town, they would be overtaken by the hoard, no question. The Infected weren’t all feral, but massive groups like that often led to a mob mentality that wasn’t worth the risk.

“We’ve got a map, we can try to find our way.” “Going off of Raven’s marked path feels risky, we could run into more of them and we could get lost.”

“Either go through them and definitely have problems, or goths other way and maybe have problems.”

“I mean-“

“I like maybe over definite.”

She couldn’t argue, even though she wanted to.

“Call it on the SAT phone, we’re gonna have to make a lot more stops to mark the road.”

“So we make more stops.”

They sat parked on the road for a few moments, the weight of it heavy on their shoulders, until Luna picked up the SAT phone.

“Echo, changing course. Hoard of Infected, no way through. Will mark our course as we go.”

They pulled themselves over into an old barn that was barely standing, and plotted a course while they waited for confirmation from their team. They were sitting quietly in the dark almost half an hour later when the line crackled and Echo’s voice came through.

“Roger that. Will be available for assistance if needed. Good luck guys, keep safe.”

“You guys do the same.” Lexa said, grabbing the phone from Luna to respond. “Going dark.”

“See you soon.” Echo said, and the line went silent.

Luna reached over and flipped off the phone, and they sat quietly for a minute longer, just looking out the window at the dilapidated barn.

The bones and remnants of a cow lay in the corner, the smell of mildew and earth detectable even through the trucks closed windows and doors, moss and grass growing wildly throughout. On the wall, two old hunting rifles and an axe hung by nails that were almost falling from the time-softened wood.

“Should we see if there’s anything in here worth salvaging? Those weapons could come in handy.” Lexa asked, her mind already cataloguing everything she could see.

“Only if we make it fast, that hoard isn’t too far away and we don’t know if they saw us coming.”

“10 minutes, tops.”

They wrapped their scarves around their mouths and noses, pulling on the scientific goggles, zipped up their hoodies and pulled on their gloves, and opened the door.

The ground sank beneath their feet, the damp, rotting straw making the ground soft. They split the space in half, and started searching. They pulled the guns and the axe from the wall, dropping them into the bed of the truck after they unrolled the cover, and found the ammunition in the old wooden cabinet, easy enough to break even with the padlock. They found some old horse blankets that could easily be put to use, but mostly everything else was worthless. They found a few knives and a small hatchet, but all the oats and stored food had already been reached by rodents, and nothing else was worth keeping.

Annoyed at the wasted time, she called over to Luna, and they retreated back to the truck, rolling back the truck bed and wandering towards the doors, when Lexa stepped on the laces of her boot. 

“Ah fuck. Hold up, gotta tie my boot!” Lexa called, kneeling down and tightening the laces, before standing up, and coming face to face with and Infected. 

She backed up fast, screaming involuntarily. The smell, death and rot and stink, permeated the air all around the woman, coughing and sputtering and groaning as she reached for her, her own blood wet on her fingertips. 

“Luna!!!” She shrieked. When she had backed up, she had gone past the door of the truck, and more Infected were coming in from the doors of the barn behind the truck, at least 30 behind her, close, a crowd of death clawing its way towards them. 

Luna hopped in the cab of the truck, slamming the door just as an Infected lurched herself at them, spraying blood across Luna’s window, and Lexa imagined an alternate world where the door hadn’t been closed in time, the virus flecked red across the cab of the truck. The thought made bile rise in her throat. She rolled down the passenger side window, and pulled a shotgun from the back of the cab, aiming it towards the Infected currently pressing Lexa back towards the decaying walls of the barn. 

“Drive.”She yelled. “Just go!” 

“Absolutely not.” Luna said, her voice steady but high, and she fired. A pellet from the gun passed clean through the flesh of Lexa’s arm, but it sprayed the Infected, and she dropped to the ground. Luna pushed the gas, and the truck moved, but slowly, the wheels caked in the mud from the soft ground, and she had a vision of the wheels spinning out as it sunk deep into the ground. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest as the growing crowd of Infected got closer and closer, eyes glassy and red, their bodies wrecked by death they were eager to spread. She ran forward and threw the door open, climbing into the truck and slamming it back closed, rolling the window up. 

The truck was still barely moving, and the crowd was almost surrounding them now, bloodied handprints like kids paintings across the side of the truck. Lexa threw the truck into reverse, and the change in direction allowed them to push out of the mud before the dug themselves in. She threw it back in drive, and swerved a little around the mud pit as she hit the gas hard, sending them flying forward and crashing through the wall of the barn, hitting something solid and bumping over it. Lexa shut her eyes and tried not to think about the person that they had likely just killed. Luna threw the truck in drive, and pulled up close to a tree at the turn they needed to take.

Lexa rolled her window back down and climbed up on top of the truck, watching as the crowd grew closer, picking up speed, running now. She tied the little white ribbon on the tree branch, her hands shaking, her heart racing, laying flat down on the truck and grabbing the rails meant to tie things to the roof before banging on the hood of the truck, telling Luna to drive. She held on, the wind whipping her hair as they flew down the road away from the hoard of Infected, not slowing until Luna was sure it was safe, and even then, not stopping. Luna slowed enough for Lexa to swing her legs down and into the window, and they drove on.

——

They stopped at every turn to mark the way, never fully leaving the truck, and they had been driving almost 3 hours, well into the darkness of late night, before Lexa realized the photo was gone.

She patted down every pocket and looked in every nook and cranny of the cab, but there was no use. She knew what pocket she had put it in, and it wasn’t there.

Luna clearly noticed her panic, but didn’t say anything for a little while, letting her stew. Luna knew all too well that Lexa only talked about her problems when she felt like it, and this was likely no different.

After almost 20 minutes of her heart beating hard in her chest, and a lump rising in her throat, she choked out the words all on her own.

“I brought a photo…” she took a breath, tipping her head back to try to keep the tears inside. “It must have fallen out of my pocket somewhere back at the barn or something… but it’s gone. It was the only-“ A sob choked out of her throat against her will, and she clapped her hand over her mouth as if she could hold in the sadness threatening to spill out of her.

“Who was the photo of?” Luna asked, looking at the road and feigning nonchalance, trying to give Lexa the space to feel even though they were trapped in the cab of a truck.

“Costia.” She whispered the name, letting it escape into the air and drift away, every thought of her feeling fragile, like at any moment she could use up some quota and lose all her memories of the girl she had loved. “She was my… She was mine, and I was hers. She went out with a scouting party about a year ago, and she never came back.”

“Do you want to tell me about her?” Luna asked, still not looking at her, but her posture was softer, and her voice had a soothing quality that Lexa felt seeping into her skin. “Did you know her from before?”

“No, no. She found me, actually. She was with The Coalition from really early on, when they were just getting started. She was a student at the university where we live, actually. It started as a bunch of students who banded together, trying to survive. After a while they came back to the school, to see if there were any survivors left, and when they did they cleared out the dorm building, raided the dining halls and brought as much food as they could inside, and sealed it up. I was with this gang… the Black Bloods, a bunch of stupid thugs with guns who thought their immunity would last forever. This guy… Titus, he was in charge, and he got sick. We all saw it, this kid he was threatening for food coughed blood up right on his face, but he didn’t believe it. Shot two guys right there for even suggesting he could get sick.” She took a breath, the memory of the days following weren’t days she liked to remember. “I was a nobody, no contact with the leadership, so that night I just bolted, grabbed a gun and a bag of food and left. I didn’t even think it through, I just knew that if the virus was in that camp there was no way we were gonna make it.”

“You were on your own?” Luna asked, glancing over at her.

“Yeah. I was about 19 by then, and I just… ran. I found this car that had been abandoned, still had the key in the ignition, so I drove. It had been almost 3 months when Costia found me. I was practically feral by then, living off anything and everything I could find, I hadn’t ever learned to survive on my own and I wasn’t going to make it a whole lot longer. She used to say when she found me I was basically skin and bones, emaciated and starving. I didn’t want to go with her, but I couldn’t fight back. They swabbed me and put me in the bed of this old truck they had, and Costia sat back there with me the whole drive back, holding my head in her lap and stroking my hair, feeding me this can of chicken broth. My parents, they died really early on, my mom was a doctor, she got infected at work, my dad caught it from her. I was immune back then, so I watched them die. I think Costia was the first person who had shown me any sort of tenderness in probably a year. I loved her instantly.”

They sat quietly for a little while, stopping to tie a ribbon to an old stop sign. About 20 minutes later, Luna spoke up. 

“What was she like?” 

Lexa took a breath, imagining the smell of vanilla that always seemed to linger in Costia’s hair, long after they stopped using her vanilla shampoo. 

“Kind.” She said, thoughtful. “And optimistic. She believed that somehow, humanity would… find their way back to each other. Like this was just a misstep in our journey. And she loved that the sky was so clear now, now that cities and light pollution were gone. She loved to drag me up on the roof of the building and sleep under the stars.” She paused for a second, and felt her breath catch in her throat. “Every time I leave the Coalition, I think part of me hopes that I’ll find her, out here with another crew or something.” 

“You never had closure, it’s natural to want it.” 

“Yeah I guess.” 

“She sounds wonderful.” 

“She was.” 

“I’m sorry about your picture. We can try to look for-” 

“It’s okay. No need to risk it for something… something so small. She’s still up here,” She said, tapping her temple, “and she always will be.” 

Luna just smiled, and then pulled over on the side of the road to switch. 

They filled up the gas tank and grabbed some small snacks from the bed of the truck, and were going again in less than 10 minutes. 

“Any idea how much longer?” Lexa asked once they were moving again. The sun was starting to rise again over the horizon, so it had to be at least another day, probably longer. Luna confirmed her thoughts, though the change in course meant there was no sure way to know. 

They ate and drove in silence for a while, and Luna slept fitfully for an hour or two, and when she woke the sun was risen and the sky was brilliantly blue. 

“What about you? What’s your story?” Lexa asked her, feeling bad for spilling all her thoughts without asking for Luna’s in return. “Did you have someone?” 

Luna had only arrived at the Coalition about 9 months ago, and Lexa had still been grieving the loss of Costia when she arrived. This was their first time spending any real time together. 

“I was traveling when the plague really began. I am from Germany, and I was here on a student visa, studying for a year. My school year had ended, and I was in California with a friend when they shut down the airports. I was 19, I thought it couldn’t be as bad as they were saying it was…” She closed her eyes, staring up at the roof of the car, breathing deeply. “I spoke to my mother every day until the power lines and cell phone towers were shut down, I don’t know what happened to her. My father died when I was very young, and my brother died when I was a teenager, so it had just been the two of us for a long time.”

“That’s… I’m so sorry.” Lexa remembered when they closed the airports, it had been sudden, less than a day’s worth of notice. She had never really thought much about people being stranded millions of miles from home, probably forever. Her heart ached for Luna and her mother. 

“She always told me not to blame myself, not to feel guilty, but I couldn’t help it. Still can’t. Anyway, I ran with a crew who had found this old shipping barge, they had a guy who knew how to use it, they lived on that thing for almost 3 years, but the virus gets everywhere eventually. After that I went a little… rogue. I got in with this little band of wannabe soldiers, went out killing Infected for about a year before my conscience caught up with me and I bailed. Was on my own after that, until The Coalition picked me up.” She paused, a little smile catching on the corners of her lips. “Before Raven picked me up.” 

“Raven?” Lexa said, a smirk passing across her mouth and a gleeful look in her eyes.

“I was out in some town, in some abandoned house. It had been cleaned out, pretty much down to the studs, but I’d always had good luck finding stuff other people had missed. It was horrible, being in houses like that. There were almost always skeletons, or worse, bodies, left behind, people who died too far into the plague for anyone to think about burials or funerals, but their lives were still so obvious. Pictures on the walls, kids artwork halfway disintegrated on the fridge, baby toys left out on the floor. I was in this house, and I found a baby nursery… the family had died in that house, so you can imagine,” Lexa suddenly had the image of a tiny skeleton left behind in a bed and felt vomit at the back of her mouth. “It hit me like a truck, I started crying and screaming, and I was running from the house when I ran straight into her. She shoved me off right away, obviously, but then she saw how distraught I was. She asked me if I had anywhere to go, and when I said no she offered me a place. She didn’t know anything about me, just swabbed my cheek and brought me with her.” 

“And you loved her ever since?” 

“Yeah, pretty much.” 

They fell into a peaceful silence, and drove into the sun. 

\---- 

They drove through the day, and as the sun was setting beyond the horizon, the factory came into view. 

Lexa felt her heart rate rise in her chest, and took a deep breath. 

“Y’alright?” Luna asked, glancing over at her. 

“I still hate missions.” 

Luna hummed in agreement as they drove on, pulling the truck off on the side of the road and wrapping their faces. They looked at each other, through the goggles, taking a deep breath together before opening the door and stepping out into the night. 

They moved quickly, darting across the grass and onto the wrecked pavement surrounding the factory. What was clearly once a stately building had started crumbling from disrepair, but it still stood tall, a roof solid overhead and strong walls still mostly intact. 

What concerned Lexa most, however, was the lack of people. 

“Where is everyone?” She whispered over Luna’s shoulder, standing staggered a bit behind her and keeping watch on their six. 

“Maybe its actually abandoned?” 

“Ha.” Lexa responded, sarcasm and fear dripping in equal measure from her mouth. 

They moved around to the side, and Lexa hitched the bag up higher on her shoulders, tightening the straps to keep it tight across her chest. She reached back and felt for the hard block of the SAT phone at the bottom of the bag. Something didn’t feel right, and if they needed help she needed to have a way to call for it. 

The fact that any help was at least three days away was not lost on her. 

They moved around to the side of the building towards the service entrance Raven had mentioned, which was held shut with a chain and heavy lock. 

“No way we can break that without making a ton of noise.” Luna whispered, wary and tense. 

“We can try and see if there are any unlocked entrances?” Lexa asked, already walking around to the corner to check if it was clear to keep looking. 

Still not a soul in sight. 

It should have made her less nervous, but it only made it worse. 

They followed the edge of the building closely, checking all the entrances, finding them all bolted shut or locked from the inside. 

“Maybe whoever was here from before locked it all up when they left, and everyone is like us… too afraid to bust in. Could actually be abandoned?”

“I don’t buy it. Something feels… off.” 

They circled the building, coming around to the back corner opposite where they had started, where they found an unlocked door. 

“It can’t really be that easy… can it?” Luna asked as she turned the handle and the door opened with ease. 

“We should leave. Something isn’t right here.”

“Leave and waste three days and all that gas? We have to at least look around first.” Luna pushed inside, the door opening to the dark inside of the factory. 

Lexa stayed out for a moment. She couldn’t leave Luna alone, but she could feel it in her gut that if they went inside, something was going to happen. She settled for the middle ground, and pulled out the SAT phone, turning it on. 

“Found the facility. Going inside. Send help, something is not right with this place.” She didn’t wait for a response, she just flipped off the phone, and shoved it under a bush-like weed that had started its assault on the building, its roots starting to climb up the stone walls, pulled the bag up on her shoulder, and stepped inside. 

The factory was so dark she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face, and eerily quiet, the only sound her own breath and their footsteps echoing in the large empty space. She caught up with Luna, and handed her the flashlight from the bag 

“Maybe we should have come in during the day.” She said warily, and Luna switched on the light… 

And revealed a woman. 

Lexa opened her mouth to scream, or say something, but before she could even draw a full breath, a horrible pain bloomed at the base of her skull, and everything went black. 

\--- 

When Lexa woke up, she had a splitting headache, and it took her a minute to gather all her thoughts that felt like puzzle pieces scattered across the floor. Slowly, everything pieced back together, and she sat up with a start, only to find herself chained to the wall behind her. 

“What the fuck?!” She hissed, yanking on the chain with no success. The room was dimly lit, and, to her relief, she could see Luna chained up next to her. Her bag was missing, and she was suddenly very happy with her choice to leave the SAT phone hidden in a bush outside. 

“Luna.” She whispered, and then again, louder. “LUNA.” 

Luna sat up, groggy and clearly in pain like she was. 

“We’re stuck, they chained us up. Nothing we can do.” 

“WHO chained us up?” She asked, her voice thick and confused. 

“I have no idea. I only saw the woman, but she had on a hood, and her mouth was covered, no idea who she was.” 

“Well, you were right about one thing.”

“Oh?” 

“We definitely shouldn’t have come in here.” 

Lexa let out a hollow laugh. “Yeah, feels like a pretty shallow victory, considering.” 

“I’ll say.” 

They tried to take stock of where they were, but the windows had been covered with black paint, and there was nothing discernable about the room at all. It was just the two of them, so she reached up with her chained hands to pull the suffocating scarf away from her mouth, and Luna did the same. 

Lexa opened her mouth to let Luna know she had called for help, but thought better of it. She had no idea if the people that had put them in there were listening, but she thought it was best to assume so. If their friends were coming, they would need every advantage they could get, and surprise was always a good one to have. She shut her eyes, tipping her head back to rest gently against the wall. 

Luna said her name, and she quickly opened her eyes, turning to place a finger gently in front of her lips. She waved a finger around the room, and then pointed to her ears. They’re listening. Luna nodded, pressing her lips together in frustration. She raised her shoulders, her eyes wide, as if to ask what they were going to do, and Lexa just shrugged, and shook her head. 

Silence, that was the key here. If they didn’t say anything, then whoever these people were didn’t have anything to use against them. She tipped her head back against the wall again, and let out a deep sigh. 

She had no idea how long they had been there before they woke up, and there was no way to tell after, but some time later, the door opened, and two men with scarves around their mouths and heavy beanies over their heads brought an unconscious woman in and chained her to the wall next to Luna. She could see a gun on one of their hips. 

“Hey, don’t leave her in here with us. She might be infected!”

“We swabbed her, don’t worry. If she was infected she’d be dead.” One of the men said, and the certainty of his voice made Lexa stop speaking. They finished chaining her up, and slammed the door behind them. 

Dead. 

It wasn’t unheard of, in fact, it was actually pretty common. If an infected person got into your safe house, killing them was an obvious choice. Kill the virus before it can get inside, one less infected out there to deal with. Not to mention, less chance of them coming back with friends, and trying to overrun you and your crew.

The Coalition didn’t do that. They rarely encountered Infected, but when they did it was usually one of their own. They had a dorm building off on the other side of campus that they left open for their friends who had been infected, but they rarely stayed. 

These people clearly had other ideas. 

After some unknown amount of time passed, the unconscious woman stirred, and started to wake up. 

“Careful, they probably hit your head pretty hard.” Luna said in that soothing voice she was so good at.

The woman sat up slowly, blinking slowly and taking in the sight of the room and the two other women chained up with her. She rolled her neck slowly and grimaced. 

“You alright?” Lexa asked. 

“Yeah… Yeah I guess.” She seemed confused, which made sense. “How long have I been here?”

“No idea. We don’t even know how long we’ve been here.”

“My name is Maya, I followed this truck… I saw it like two days ago, they were leaving these white ribbons behind… My sister died… My father got infected almost two months ago… I’ve been on my own. I figured wherever they were going, if they were leading people there, it must be safe.” She looked distraught, not that Lexa could blame her. 

“That was us, we were leaving markings-” Lexa shushed her loudly, and Luna cut herself off sharply, pausing before going on, “-in case we needed help finding our way back home. We’re so sorry you got caught up in this, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.” Luna said softly. 

“That’s okay, you didn’t know I was following you, that’s not on you.” 

Lexa smiled at her, and decided in that moment that if they ever got out of here, they were bringing Maya back with them. 

They were in that room for what felt like days, rationing the single water bottle each that was brought to them by their captors. Lexa felt weak, and tired, and her stomach had stopped grumbling a long time ago. 

She would like to say it didn’t make sense, to bring them here and chain them up just to let them starve, but then again… the new world order allowed for a lot of things that didn’t really make sense. 

She had been fading in and out of consciousness when a striking brunette woman flanked by two tall men entered the room.

“Up.” She commanded, her voice sharp. 

Lexa glowered at her, and remained sitting. Partially out of spite and partially because she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her. 

“I said,” The woman stepped closer, grabbing the chains on the wall and yanking her up, “Up.” 

Once they were all standing, the woman introduced herself. 

“My name is Ontari. As far as you’re concerned, I’m in charge around here.” She gestured to the men behind her, and they walked over and unchained the three of them. Lexa unconsciously rubbed at the raw skin on her wrists and she sized up Ontari. 

She wasn’t very tall, but something about her was larger than life. She stood tall, her back straight, her chin held high, and the way she spoke commanded the men she had with her in a way that was almost eerie. 

She was in charge. Maybe not entirely, but she had command of this place in a much more subtle way. 

Ontari led them out into the factory and out the side of the building, into a large fenced in space where a group of people were tilling the soil in what seemed to be a garden. 

They were shoved towards a young girl with dark hair and kind eyes who handed them small rakes and a small, yellowing packet of seeds, and were pointed towards an untended patch of garden. The sun was high in the sky, and there was nothing for miles in any direction. 

The truck, Lexa thought with a grimace, parked off hiding in a small grove of trees. She wondered if they had found it.

They had barely been out for 10 minutes when a familiar voice called out to her. 

“Lexa?!” 

She turned, and felt her heart stop. 

“ _Bellamy!?”_

\--- 

They were aggressively told not to speak, so they worked the earth until their fingers ached and the dirt had caked up their arms and beneath their fingers, until the sun had sank, burning the horizon as it went, and the cool air rose goosebumps on her exposed skin. After what was likely hours, they were brought inside, and sent in to shower. 

Lexa stood for a moment, letting the lukewarm water pour over her, before the angry female guard told her to hurry. She scrubbed her skin almost raw with the scrubber she had been given, letting the soapy water rinse away until it turned from brown to clear, and then dressed in the coveralls and boots she was handed. 

Still lightheaded from lack of food, but clean, she was led into a large room with long tables, where Luna and Maya were sitting, already with Bellamy, and she walked as quickly as she could, throwing her arms around him as soon as she was close enough. 

He wrapped his arms around her, thinner than she remembered but still strong, and somehow even after so long, his scent was familiar. 

“It’s been 2 years Bellamy.” She whispered into his chest, and his sigh vibrated her whole body. 

“I know.” His voice was still the same, and her heart ached. 

Bellamy had been with The Coalition since the beginning. His sister had been a student at the University and he had made his way there as soon as the outbreak had really begun, and had been one of the founding members. When Lexa had arrived there, Bellamy had quickly taken her under his wing, and it hadn’t taken long for her to consider him her family. Bellamy had always taken care of her, helped her find her place in their new world, he had been like a brother. She had been there about a year when his sister, Octavia, had run off with this guy she met, Lincoln, who believed there was a safe place, a barge on the rivers that she would later learn was Luna’s barge. Octavia had always been restless with The Coalition, she felt trapped, and the chance to find somewhere else had been too alluring to resist. Bellamy had gone with them, and when he didn’t return, they assumed the worst. 

“Octavia?” She asked, her voice soft, resting her hand on his knee as they sat down, as if trying to reassure herself that he was really here. 

“I don’t know. They were still searching for that barge when I was grabbed. I don’t-” He was cut off by Luna’s soft gasp. 

“Lincoln… and Octavia, the girl he brought… they arrived only… the virus got on the ship only a few months after they arrived… and that’s when I ran. I knew Lincoln, from before, he was a friend from my year abroad… Lincoln got infected, and Octavia, she refused to leave him. I left right after the infection showed up, I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened to her.” She looked at him, a pensive look on her face. 

“She’s dead.” He said, and something about the way he said it made Lexa sure it was true, even though he hadn’t seen it. She knew, because she felt it too. That hope that one day you’d be proven wrong, but the knowledge, deep in your gut, that the person you longed for was gone. She squeezed his knee sympathetically. 

“Is that how you ended up here?” She asked him, and he nodded. 

“I was out on a food run. We took turns, and I was out looking, and I got grabbed. They brought me back here, and I’ve been here ever since, almost a year and a half by my count.” 

“Is it…” Lexa picked at her words like a child with food they didn’t like, “Is it safe here?” 

Before he could answer, the guards opened the door, and a tall man with long brown hair walked in, followed by a cart with food piled high. 

“That’s Roan,” Bellamy whispered. “He’s pretty high up, but lately he’s been stuck on prisoner duty. No idea why.”

The cart was wheeled down the aisles between the tables, and trays were placed in front of each of them. Fresh tomato slices, a hunk of bread that looked freshly made, some sort of beans, and a piece of meat. Lexa couldn’t remember the last time she’d had fresh food, and she grabbed the tomato, ripping a piece in half and shoving it in her mouth, almost groaning at the fresh, bright taste. She reached for the meat, but Bellamy grabbed her wrist and shook his head. 

“You don’t want to eat that.” He whispered. She furrowed her eyebrows at him questioningly. 

“Look… I don’t know what you guys have heard about this place, but some of the shit we hear… I just wouldn’t.”

She looked around, and sure enough, almost no one was touching the meat. A couple of men in the corner were picking at it, as if considering it, but no one took a bite. 

“Look. You have to stay in line. This place… It’s safe if you follow the rules. They’ll feed you, keep you clean and housed, but the people who break the rules…” He trailed off, but Lexa had no time for bullshit. 

“What?” She whispered sharply, leaning in closer. “What, they fucking eat them?” 

He looked at her in a way that made her stomach turn. 

“It’s just a rumour, okay, but they aren’t ever seen again, and they don’t have fucking livestock.” 

She stared down at the piece of meat on her tray, and then looked up, catching Luna’s eye. 

“We can’t stay here.” She said, matter of fact. Luna nodded. “What do you say Bell, ready to blow this joint?” 

“Honestly?” He said, and a look of relief seemed to wash over him. “I thought you’d never ask.” 

\---- 

They spent the next couple of days falling in line. They worked when they were supposed to work, they showered and slept when they were meant to, and they ate meals together. Huddled over vegetables and fresh bread, cautiously avoiding the suspect meat, they planned. 

Bellamy knew the place well, a year and a half of time giving him the lay of the land better than any of them, and so they formulated a plan. 

They had to leave in the middle of the night, so for three nights, they traded shifts keeping watch on the guards to time the shift changes. 

It had been almost two weeks since they’d been kidnapped by the time they had a plan. 

They filed into their dorm as usual. When they had arrived, the other rooms had been full, so they had settled Maya, Luna, and Lexa into a small room on their own, sleeping on pallets on the floor until they found more space, so they were alone. 

“Should we go over the plan again?” Lexa asked quietly, settling onto her bed and tucking her knees to her chest. Luna shrugged, and Maya nodded. 

“We wait until the third pass of the guard past our window, and then we leave.” Maya whispered, her voice shaky. 

“We meet Bellamy, three rights and two lefts, and he’ll lead us to the door.” 

“We get out, we grab the SAT phone, find the truck, and get going.” 

“Simple.” Lexa said, but there was no confidence in her voice.

“Simple.” Luna said, and Lexa knew she felt it too. 

The guard shift passed once, twice, three times, and they got up, wrapping their scarves around their mouths and heading out the door. 

Quiet as they could be, they moved through the factory, checking every corner and keeping close to the walls, until they found Bellamy. 

“Okay. The door is at the back of the building, an old service entrance that only locks from inside. It’s not far, but the guards are all over, we have to be quick, and quiet.” 

“Right.” They all nodded, and Bellamy led the way. 

Every corner made Lexa’s breath catch in her throat, every sound from somewhere in the building, echoing loudly across the stone and metal, made her heart stop.

They rounded a corner, and came face to back with a tall guard, a gun in his hands. They stopped suddenly, and Bellamy placed a finger over his lips, before rushing forward and grabbing the guard around the neck, clasping his hand over his mouth and holding him in a choke hold until he passed out, lowering him to the ground quietly. He grabbed the gun, and beckoned them forward. 

“We have to hurry. When he wakes up, he’ll go for backup.”

He took off at a run, and the girls followed closely, each step making Lexa’s heart pound. If these people killed (and ATE?!) anyone who stepped out of line, what on earth would they do to people who tried to escape? She shoved the thought down, and followed Bellamy into the darkness. 

They found the door, locked with a bolt just like Bellamy had said it would be. He handed a pin to Luna to pick the lock while he stood guard. Within a moment, Luna had the bolt open, and they opened the door. 

The site on the other side was horrific.

It didn’t open to the outside, but to another room, inside were bodies. It was a freezer, and the walls were lined with the dead. 

Lexa threw up across the toes of her own boots, before looking up and releasing a scream of anguish. 

She hadn’t meant to scream, hadn’t meant to make a sound, but.. 

It was Costia.

Her body was leaned against the wall on the side of the room, grey and frozen, but it was her. She had been here, in this place, the whole time. Lexa vomited again, before a wretched sob wracked through her.

“This isn’t an exit, Bellamy, we have to-”

The three of them turned, to find Bellamy pointing the weapon at them. 

“Sorry ladies, but The Doctor likes us to have a little fun with our food first.” 

~

_The noise at the backdoor had alerted the guards, and Dr. Lorelai Tsing had sent for Bellamy and Roan. Bellamy hated being called in at night, wishing he could curl back up into the warmth of his own bed, but duty called._

_He strapped on his gear, wrapping his face and pulling on his hat, and joining Roan and Lorelai in the hall._

_“Two women, seemingly unarmed.” She said, barely looking up at them as she pulled the hood over her head. “They came in from the northwest entrance, they’re headed towards the central hub. You go in from behind, knock them out, and we’ll take them in.”_

_“Yes ma’am.” Roan said sarcastically, and Lorelai glared at him._

_“Maybe if you’re unhappy with guard duty you shouldn’t have been taking extra food rations.”_

_Roan just rolled his eyes, and hauled his gun higher up on his shoulder._

_Bellamy just laughed._

_He had been with The Doctor and her crew for almost a year and a half now. He had been grabbed by them on a food run, and had been resistant at first, trying to get free, until he saw her._

_Clarke._

_She had been his best friend as a child, and as he grew up, his feelings for her had grown too._

_She had been with Dr. Tsing for almost four years, and when she had heard he had been caught, she had begged to have him instated as one of them guards, giving him position, better food, less manual labor._

_He hated late night guard duty, because the image of her, warm in his bed, always made him so reluctant to leave._

_At first, it had all seemed… horrific._

_But as time went on, as the world slowly evolved into chaos and horror beyond measure, the way The Doctor did things seemed less and less monstrous._

_If this was the new world order, he might as well survive with the woman he loved._

_He and Roan stood impatiently in the dark, waiting for the unsuspecting women to fall into their clutches, as Dr. Tsing positioned herself for maximum impact._

_She was nothing if not dramatic._

_He heard them before he saw them, their steps echoing in the pitch black, and then he heard her._

_“Maybe we should have come during the day.” Her voice was quiet, but unmistakable._

_They switched on a flashlight, illuminating Dr. Tsing, and Roan and Bellamy crept up from behind, slamming the base of their assault rifles into the base of their skulls, catching them as they crumpled to the floor._

_A few hours later, the girls were tied up and Bellamy was sitting in Dr. Tsing’s office._

_“Yeah, the one with the braids, I knew her. She showed up one day, some scouting party in the crew i used to run with picked her up. She trusts me.”_

_“How much?” Dr. Tsing asked, a small smile on the corner of her lips._

_“Oh, don’t worry” He said, leaning back in his chair, “I’ll get her right where you want her.”_

~ 

“Bellamy…” Lexa said, fury and fear in equal measure rising in her throat, “What the fuck is going on?”

“Well, you see,” He said, his posture changing to a cocky swagger as he let the facade fall away, “When you got here, I told The Doctor I could get you to trust me, and look at that.” A smirk danced across his face, and Lexa felt her blood boil. 

“You vile little shit.” Luna whispered, shaking her head. Maya stood back, looking furious. 

“Oh, don’t be so judgemental. As if you’ve never betrayed anyone before.”

“Oh is that all this is? Just a betrayal?” Lexa said, spitting poison between her teeth. 

He just shrugged, leveling the gun at her, then at Luna, then at Maya, and then back, like a game.

“Why?” She asked, wanting answers as much as she wanted to run. He was stalling, and they were in danger, but he had a gun and they had no way out. “Why not just let us stay?” 

“Because I knew you’d never stay in a place like this. After you showed up at the Coalition you went on and on about how the Black Bloods killing Infected was so wrong, so horrible. I knew you’d never stay here, not if you ever found out what was really going on. So the answer seemed simple, you can’t stay, but you also can’t leave. And Ontari enjoys the hunt. It was a win win.” 

Suddenly, she put it together. 

“You’re going to hunt us for sport.” She whispered, not a question. 

“I always knew you were so smart." He said, laughing, and then turning when footsteps echoed behind him. A young blonde woman came up to his side, and he leaned into her gently, enough for Lexa to see what they were to each other. "Now, Ontari is waiting... You have a 5 minute head start."

Lexa stood her ground, her jaw clenched so tightly it was beginning to ache.

"Oh, don't be like that." The woman said, smiling. "It's no fun if we don't have to chase you."

Lexa had half a mind to stay planted, to make Bellamy watch as she died, but Luna grabbed her arm and pulled her, running as fast as she could into the dark.

She yanked them into an open office, breathing heavily.

"We passed the kitchens on our way here, that means were close to the door we came in through. If we go back the way we came, we can get knives from the kitchen, we need weapons, and we can try to make our way out."

"How the fuck are we supposed to do that?" Lexa asked, fear taking hold. "We don't know our way around, and they have _guns_ Luna."

"We have to at least try." Lexa turned as Maya's voice, steady and quiet, rang out. "We all fell for it," She said, making a point to look at Lexa, "I can tell you already blame yourself, but we all fell for it. We need to try. We can't just sit here and let them take us. We go to the kitchen. We get the knives. We try for the door."

Luna and Lexa glanced at each other, feeling a small swell of pride at Maya’s confidence and command, and nodded. 

So they ran back the way they came. The guard Bellamy had knocked unconscious was still on the ground, and Luna grabbed his smaller gun from his hip holster, checking for rounds and clicking off the safety, and shot him in the head. 

Lexa wanted to protest, but swallowed it. If they were being hunted, they couldn’t afford to be merciful. 

They found the kitchen, and were grabbing the largest knives they could find, and a bbq fork that was almost as big as Lexa’s hand, when a loud alarm rang out, followed by a voice echoing loudly over the intercom. 

“Welcome to The Hunt. I am The Doctor, and I wanted to thank you for the sacrifice you will make here tonight. You are very important to us. Your head start ends now. I would offer you luck, but I’d rather keep that for myself.” The intercom cut out, and the silence was deafening, and Maya threw up somewhere behind her. 

“You sure you know how to get to the door?” Lexa asked, staring at Luna. 

“Yep. I’m sure.” 

“Then let’s get the fuck out of this place.” 

Luna led the way, gun raised, turning corner after corner, leading them through the maze. They had made it almost 100 metres when they rounded a corner and found a woman and a man, smirking and laughing, standing in their way. 

Luna acted first, shooting the woman in the stomach, blood blooming across her grey shirt as she collapsed the ground, but the man charged them before Luna could get a good shot, raising running at Lexa full speed. Part of her was frozen, but the other part, some animalistic, fight or flight part, acted for her, and she took the fork and stabbed the man through the neck, his blood splashing across her face and pouring down his neck. She yanked the fork back out and threw him to the ground, and they kept running. 

They rounded the last corner and the door was in sight, when Bellamy stepped out of the shadows and grabbed Maya around the neck, holding her to him, his gun leveled at Luna. He turned to face Lexa, a maniacal grin across his face. 

“You really thought you’d get free?” He said, almost laughing. 

“You won’t kill us, you need us alive, meats no good if it has time to spoil.” She said, feigning a calm that was unimaginable in the moment. 

“Oh, you think it’ll matter if I take out one of your little friends? We have plenty of people, we’ll be just fine.” 

“Oh, Bellamy, you’re ruining the fun.” Said a voice, and Ontari emerged from the darkness, her teeth bared like an animal in a menacing grin. As she stood, more of them emerged from the darkness, until they were outnumbered 5 to 3. Ontari moved to stand between Luna and the doors.

Luna raised her gun, but a shot rang out and blood sprayed from her shoulder, her weapon falling to the ground. 

“Thanks for playing.” Ontari said, a menacing lilt to a childish phrase. 

She walked towards them, slow, twirling a knife in her hand as she approached, a thoughtful look on her face, like she was considering who to kill, when a horribly loud sound came from behind her and the blinding headlights of a truck crashed through the double doors, slamming into Ontari from behind and rolling over her, a sickening crunch echoing through the room. 

“Looks like you need some help.” Said a voice, and Echo popped her head out of the driver side window of the truck, a machine gun in hand. 

Two loud bangs, and two of the men who had started running for them fell to the floor. Lexa ran over, wrapping an arm around Luna and lifting her back to standing, hauling her to the car. Another shot, and another body slumped to the ground. 

“Not another step, or I kill the girl.” Bellamy’s voice echoed in the empty room, and Maya whimpered as he pulled her head back by her hair, his gun aimed at her stomach.

“Bellamy?” Echo said, clearly shocked. 

“Oh, don’t waste time celebrating him not being dead, he’s the reason we’re in this fucking mess.” She turned her attention to Maya. “We won’t let him hurt you Maya.” 

Maya nodded, and what happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. 

Maya lifted her leg slowly, pulling out the knife she had tucked into her boot, and raised it, slashing at Bellamy’s arm. The gun went off, and Maya turned, burying the knife in Bellamy’s stomach. 

Lexa lurched to halt, and watched as blood pooled at the corners of Bellamy’s lips. 

“Thanks for playing.” Maya said through gritted teeth, twisting the knife once before yanking it out and pushing him to the ground. 

She staggered, and Lexa saw the blood pouring from the gunshot wound on her leg. Echo climbed from the truck, running over and picking Maya up, carrying her to the bed of the truck and laying her down. 

“Get Luna in the passenger seat, and then get back there and tie off that bleeder, we gotta go.”

She didn’t hesitate, strapping Luna in and unwrapping her scarf to put pressure on the wounded before climbing into the bed of the truck, right before Echo threw the truck in reverse and sped away. 

She tied a tight tourniquet on Maya’s leg, apologising as she grimaced. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” 

“I’ve never killed anyone before.” Maya said through gritted teeth.

“Well you fucked rocked at it.” Lexa said, laughter mixing with tears as the adrenaline running through her began to subside. 

Bellamy had betrayed them.

Costia was dead.

She let the tears flow, and the wind blew them away. 

They had been driving for hours, the sun finally emerging over the horizon, when Echo stopped. 

Lexa leapt from the back of the truck and clung to Echo for dear life. 

“You fucking saved our asses in there dude.”

“Anytime.” Echo said, hugging her back fiercely. “Sorry it took me so long, I was driving but our other car shorted out. They sent me alone, sent Emori back to try and get another one. She never caught up with me, so I walked.”

“You think she’s okay?” 

“Yeah, they called me on the SAT, the other cars were already in use, told me to book it on foot.” 

“You seriously saved us, I’m glad you made it.”

They untangled from the hug, and Echo leaned against the truck. 

“Bellamy?” She said, incredulous. 

“It’s a fucking long story.” Lexa said. 

“Well, we’ve got a ways to go. Let’s get moving, and you can fill me in on the way?”

“Sounds fucking spectacular.”

Echo laughed out loud, and hugged her again before they climbed back into the truck, and drove towards home.

**Author's Note:**

> My tropes and themes are: 
> 
> Theme - Post Apocalyptic (Must be different from canon) [I chose a plague apocalypse (because I've been watching too much Containment and 12 Monkeys)]
> 
> Tropes  
> 1 - Fairy Tale - I chose Hansel and Gretel  
> 2 - Road Trip  
> 3 - Characters reuniting with someone they thought was dead  
> 4 - Characters hugging each other after one or both of them have been through hell
> 
> Idk if Bellamy is necessarily in character here, but I wanted to play with a character that nobody would suspect turning out to be a villain and tricking them, and Bellamy seemed like the perfect choice. I hope the twist was a fun one!


End file.
